Friday, October 11, 2013
Criminal: No Prosecution Despite $3.4 Million Settlement in Jose Guerena Killing
Via WRSA
TUCSON (AP) – The family of a former Marine who was killed when a SWAT team raided his Tucson-area home in 2011 has settled a lawsuit with four police agencies for $3.4 million, a newspaper reported Thursday.
If they did nothing wrong, why settle? And since a civil lawsuits’ 51% “preponderance of evidence” is basically a mirror-image of the standard for indictment, why hasn’t Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall done anything to prosecute the SWAT officers who broke into Guerena’s home without sufficient warning, shot him, and denied paramedics access until after he was dead? The article says:
“The county attorney’s office later cleared the SWAT team officers of any wrongdoing.”
More @ Prosecutorial Discretion
Global Warming! South Dakota blizzard kills 75,000 cattle
Via NC Links
Seventy-five thousand! Including tens of thousands of calves.
An unusually early and enormous snowstorm over the weekend killed as many as 75,000 cattle in South Dakota, ravaging the state’s $7 billion industry.
The blizzard set snowfall records for the entire month of October in a mere three days, state and industry officials said.
Across the state, snow totals averaged – averaged! – 30 inches (76 cm). Some isolated areas recorded almost 5 feet (140 cm), The Weather Channel reported. That’s shoulder-height-deep for most people.
It’s so early in the season that the animals hadn’t yet grown their heavier winter coats, leaving them unprotected.
“The cattle were soaked to the bone,” said Silvia Christen, executive director of the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association. “Then the wind and really heavy snow started — it just clung to them and weighed them down.”
“Many of them just dropped where they were walking,” she said, adding that at least 5 percent of the roughly 1.2 million cattle in the western third of South Dakota likely perished.
A trail of carcasses left a gruesome sight, said Martha Wierzbicki, emergency management director for Butte County, in the northwestern corner of the state.
An unusually early and enormous snowstorm over the weekend killed as many as 75,000 cattle in South Dakota, ravaging the state’s $7 billion industry.
The blizzard set snowfall records for the entire month of October in a mere three days, state and industry officials said.
Across the state, snow totals averaged – averaged! – 30 inches (76 cm). Some isolated areas recorded almost 5 feet (140 cm), The Weather Channel reported. That’s shoulder-height-deep for most people.
It’s so early in the season that the animals hadn’t yet grown their heavier winter coats, leaving them unprotected.
“The cattle were soaked to the bone,” said Silvia Christen, executive director of the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association. “Then the wind and really heavy snow started — it just clung to them and weighed them down.”
“Many of them just dropped where they were walking,” she said, adding that at least 5 percent of the roughly 1.2 million cattle in the western third of South Dakota likely perished.
A trail of carcasses left a gruesome sight, said Martha Wierzbicki, emergency management director for Butte County, in the northwestern corner of the state.
More @ Ice Age Now
Last Farewell to Robert E. Lee
The United States flag flew at half-mast when Robert E. Lee died.
Lee Chapel at Washington and Lee University is the site of annual programs paying tribute to Robert Edward Lee. On Monday, October 14, 2013, a program commemorating the Washington College presidency of Robert E. Lee on the 143rd anniversary of his death will feature War Between the States historian, Frank O’Reilly. The lecture entitled “Adapt, Improvise, and Overcome: Robert E. Lee’s Greatest Victory at Chancellorsville” will begin at 12:15 p.m.
The New York Times reported:
More @ Canada Free Press
Shutdown
Via Robert
From a good friend in Government; his comments:
Think for a minute: How quickly do you think everything could be accomplished with supposedly little or no advance planning? Not to mention how quickly the park department was able to locate and erect the stand alone fencing / barricades at the memorial park (to keep the WWII vets out) and the barricades at the other locations across the country….
I have worked in the government on and off for 40 years. During that time I became quite familiar with requisitions, bidding, awarding contracts, etc. It is a time consuming process with bean-counters and pencil-necked bureaucrats every step of the way. The simplest request takes months not days or hours.
In less than 8 hours of the shutdown, "miraculously," professionally printed 3X4 foot signs appeared all over the country in the tens of thousands saying- “this [park, facility, etc. with custom logos] closed due to government shutdown."
There has not been a government shutdown in 17 years. These signs were designed, specifications were determined, signs were then requisitioned, bids were posted and vetted, government contracts were awarded. The materials were then ordered and the signs manufactured then distributed via U.S. Mails or freight companies.
This shutdown was orchestrated and planned well in advance at least 6-8 month ago.
Millions of tax dollars were appropriated and spent in this process. There is a paper trail a mile long leading directly to the White House.
From a good friend in Government; his comments:
Think for a minute: How quickly do you think everything could be accomplished with supposedly little or no advance planning? Not to mention how quickly the park department was able to locate and erect the stand alone fencing / barricades at the memorial park (to keep the WWII vets out) and the barricades at the other locations across the country….
I have worked in the government on and off for 40 years. During that time I became quite familiar with requisitions, bidding, awarding contracts, etc. It is a time consuming process with bean-counters and pencil-necked bureaucrats every step of the way. The simplest request takes months not days or hours.
In less than 8 hours of the shutdown, "miraculously," professionally printed 3X4 foot signs appeared all over the country in the tens of thousands saying- “this [park, facility, etc. with custom logos] closed due to government shutdown."
There has not been a government shutdown in 17 years. These signs were designed, specifications were determined, signs were then requisitioned, bids were posted and vetted, government contracts were awarded. The materials were then ordered and the signs manufactured then distributed via U.S. Mails or freight companies.
This shutdown was orchestrated and planned well in advance at least 6-8 month ago.
Millions of tax dollars were appropriated and spent in this process. There is a paper trail a mile long leading directly to the White House.
Rand Paul warns of war on Christianity. Obama 'glosses over who is doing the killing'
“You won’t hear much about it on the evening news,” warned Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., “but there is a worldwide war on Christianity.”
The senator chose to highlight the danger of radical Islam in his speech before the Values Voter Summit Friday morning.
Paul explained the war on Christianity is not making the headlines it should because the “narrative is not convenient” to the establishment media.
“The president tries to gloss over who’s attacking and killing Christians. The media describes the killings as ‘sectarian.’”
But the truth, said the senator, is war is being waged on Christians “by a fanatical element of Islam.”
The senator said the killers were a minority of Muslims, but, “unfortunately, that minority number is in the tens of millions.”
Paul said radical Islam will come to an end only when Islam polices itself, and, “Only then will knowledge, enlightenment begin to glow and grow and violence, religious violence, will recede. ”
More @ WND
Cruz Outplays Hecklers at Conservative Conference
An overall summary from today’s Value Voters Summit conference is coming later, but this deserved a separate post.
Senator Ted Cruz didn’t need a podium today when he spoke about conservative ideals at today’s Value Voters conference at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC. He also didn’t need a bodyguard. When a handful of protestors showed up to interrupt his speech, the Texas senator employed one of his own state’s mottos and showed them “nobody messes” with conservatives.
I counted at least six times that hecklers shouted questions at Cruz regarding his stance on immigration. Each time, the senator had a response. Here were some of his best reactions:
More @ Townhall
Obama Balks at Boehner's Debt Ceiling Offer
After House Republicans gave a little breathing room on the debt ceiling, offering a “clean” six-week increase with nothing in return, President Barack Obama rejected their plan.
Obama’s and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s decision to completely reject any offer of a compromise from House Republicans confirms what most conservatives already know: Obama will not negotiate on anything (he has said as much numerous times over the past couple of weeks) unless he faces consequences for failing to do so.The whole point of this fight, as most congressional Republicans including House Speaker John Boehner have said, has been to expose how President Obama has never compromised on anything, always gets his way or the highway, and will not negotiate with Congress—though he will try to make deals with American rivals or enemies like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran’s new leaders. In the process, conservatives hoped that Republicans would use their negotiating power to shred Obamacare, or at least burn parts of it.
More @ Breitbart
One Week and Counting -- Nullify Now! Event in Raleigh
A Most Important Event This Year for NC LS Members – Join Us Next Week!
Get your tickets and plan to be in Raleigh Saturday-week
to hear a strong slate of speakers and network with fellow thinkers
from other organizations sponsoring the Nullify Now! Event. As is the
question of political secession, nullification of unconstitutional
federal laws is a hot topic today for those who have read and understand
the United States Constitution, and know the strict limits the Founders
placed upon the authority of the federal agent. Enjoy a full day of
critical thinking, great speakers and mingling with many patriotic North
Carolinians.
Confirmed Speakers:
Thomas E. Woods, Jr.,
is the author of eleven books, most recently Rollback: Repealing Big
Government Before the Coming Fiscal Collapse and Nullification: How to
Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century.
Mike Church
is the author, producer, and voice talent behind a trilogy of
documentaries: “Road to Independence” and “The Fame of Our Fathers: How
Immortality Inspired Our Constitution” and the “Spirit of ’76.”
Publius Huldah
is a writer, blogger, and speaker and hopes that her efforts will help
re-acquaint citizens with their founding history and ideals, re-educate
them on the meaning and intent of their founding documents, energize and
engage them on their responsibility as citizens.
Mike Maharrey
is the national communications director for the Tenth Amendment Center
and author of the book, Our Last Hope: Rediscovering the Lost Path to
Liberty and co-author of the forthcoming handbook, Nullification:
Answering the Objections.
Jason Rink
is an experienced and multi-talented producer, including producing and
directing the award-winning feature documentary Nullification: The
Rightful Remedy.
Dr. Dan Eichenbaum
founded Dr. Dan’s Freedom Forum, a conservative television and talk
radio program and blog, focused on advancing the principles of limited
government, individual freedom, personal responsibility, fiscal
restraint, private property rights, and free market economic solutions.
Dr. Greg Brannon
in 2009 began a mission to communicate our Founders message with the
desire to ensure that the American Dream, which he has been fortunate to
live, will be available to future generations.
Doug Tjaden
is an author, pastor and Director of Business Development at Mass
Metal, LLC. He will be hosting a session, End the Fed from the Bottom
Up. Explore ways to advance the cause of constitutional tender/sound
money and break the iron grip that the Federal Reserve has on the
economy.
Adam Love
the State Coordinator for North Carolina’s Campaign for Liberty, speaks
to Tea Party and Republican events around the state, a guest for radio
hosts such as Pete Kaliner and Chad Adams, and conducts pressure
campaigns focused on pending legislation before the North Carolina
General Assembly.
Nicole Revels
is a North Carolina activist, Director of Carolina Liberty PAC, and a
contributing journalist for Pundit House and the Caldwell TEA Party.
If you do not have a ticket, order now at: http://www.nullifynow.com/
Obama’s Park Service Removes Handles From Water Fountains
It gets harder every day, but even now the Obama Regime hits new extremes of juvenile pettiness on a regular basis. The latest malicious idiocy from Obama’s shutdown spectacle:
Republicans contend that the NPS [National Park Service], which is part of the executive branch, is under orders to make life difficult for would-be parkgoers as part of a broader political plan by the Obama administration to turn public opinion against Republicans. …
Senior Republicans have said they may open a formal investigation into the mass closures and the barring of people from places where no significant maintenance or security is required. Small children’s parks, hiking trails, and outdoor monuments remain closed despite the minimal investment needed to maintain them, if any.
In what looks like a spiteful move, the NPS even removed handles from water spigots along the Chesapeake and Ohio canal where bikers and joggers exercise as well as along the Great Allegheny Passage, just to ensure people don’t get any water from them.Next NPS agents will promote the shutdown by placing tacks on park benches to make sure no one enjoys sitting on them.
Instead of saving money, the NPS is expending additional resources to go out of its way to close such locations and to make people miserable.
More @ Moonbattery
Parks take center stage in shutdown fight
Conservatives in Congress are charging that the Obama administration has been trying to make the government shutdown as painful as possible by closing some of the most celebrated and iconic national parks and wild lands.
Veterans being denied a chance to visit the World War II memorial on the National Mall became an early symbol of the government’s closure, but lawmakers have since said that public land regulators are going out of their way to prevent tourists from visiting national sites and keep hunters and fishers out of wildlife refuges.
Some conservatives have said that the actions are politically motivated to increase the pressure on congressional Republicans, whom the public has tended to blame for the shutdown.
“You have the people who are making the decision about how far the shutdown will reach being aware when they do this that the blame will be borne, presumably, by the GOP,” said Hans Bader, a senior attorney at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute. “I think there’s an element of political theater to it.”
More @ The Hill
Happening now! Truckers roaring into D.C. Big rigs invading nation's capitol to protest assault on Constitution
Dozens of big rig drivers and long-haul truckers took to the highways around Washington, D.C., Friday in a protest of the extra-constitutional activities of Congress and the president, as a weekend of planned political statements launched.
CBS reported that at one point, truckers were side-by-side-by-side-by-side across four lanes of Interstate 95 and were blocking traffic until a Virginia State Police officer pulled them over.
After talking with the officer, the trucks resumed their drive at a speed of about 40 mph, up from the 10 mph they had been going, the report said.
More @ WND
Starved, raped and made to eat pictures of Hitler YEAR ZERO: A HISTORY OF 1945 BY IAN BURUMA
Via WiscoDave
Stalin's army of rapists
RAPE OF GERMAN WOMEN: After Germany lost the Second World War
**************************************
VE Day, what comes to mind? Churchill’s two-fingered Victory salute; the Royal Family waving from the balcony; the Princesses escaping to join the crowds dancing in the streets; the pealing of bells from country churches to mark the longed-for benison of peace.
Yet, for the defeated, peace was a dirty word, a bitter shrug of laughter. Throughout Europe and beyond, the reality was not peace but hunger, despair and revenge.
Ian Buruma’s wonderful book is about a time, immediately after the end of the war, which has somehow fallen between the cracks of history, and which the author has now devastatingly brought to light.
He was prompted to write it, he tells us, by his father’s wartime experience of forced labour in a concentration camp. How, he wondered, could the world return to normality after such horrors? How could the starving survivors be stopped from exacting bloody revenge? How could societies be mended and ‘civilisation’ put together again?
Stalin's army of rapists
RAPE OF GERMAN WOMEN: After Germany lost the Second World War
**************************************
VE Day, what comes to mind? Churchill’s two-fingered Victory salute; the Royal Family waving from the balcony; the Princesses escaping to join the crowds dancing in the streets; the pealing of bells from country churches to mark the longed-for benison of peace.
Yet, for the defeated, peace was a dirty word, a bitter shrug of laughter. Throughout Europe and beyond, the reality was not peace but hunger, despair and revenge.
Ian Buruma’s wonderful book is about a time, immediately after the end of the war, which has somehow fallen between the cracks of history, and which the author has now devastatingly brought to light.
He was prompted to write it, he tells us, by his father’s wartime experience of forced labour in a concentration camp. How, he wondered, could the world return to normality after such horrors? How could the starving survivors be stopped from exacting bloody revenge? How could societies be mended and ‘civilisation’ put together again?
More @ Daily Mail
Is making a policy decision in the "National Interest" smart anymore? Probably not.
Here's something I've been thinking about.
I've been grappling with a simple question. Is the use of national interest, as the basis of security and foreign policy, a dumb idea in the present context?
National interest is a construct from the realism school of policy. Realism is simply a case by case analysis of the costs and benefits of actions relative to the interests of the state, without reference to ideology or ideals (capitalism, communism, religion, etc.).
Realism assumes that the world is an anarchic, in a Hobbsian dog eat dog way, and that nation-states need to be selfish in order to survive.
Of course, things have changed since that formulation was developed. In particular, we're now living in a world that is:
More @ Global Guerrillas
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